Habitat keeps building for the future

Kim Trainor, right, community relations director for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Lowell, helps with construction during last year s Women Build. COURTESY PHOTO

WESTFORD -- One of the things that community relations director Kim Trainor of Habitat for Humanity of Lowell likes most about her job is that she gets to help people to help themselves.

"This is not a handout program. It's a hand up. I absolutely love my job," said Trainor.

The local Habitat office is building two new duplex style homes at 49-55 Rock St., off Fletcher Street in Lowell's Acre neighborhood. When they are finished, the houses will go to two local families, the Medeiroses and the Polls.

Neither of the families would have been able to afford a house without the Habitat program; the Medeiros family includes a single mother of five boys who lost two partners to tragedies, one health-related and another from an accident.

"These circumstances could happen to any of us. Her son gave her the courage to apply for one of our loans," Trainor said.

The Poll family includes a single mother with four children.

"One duplex is being built by Greater Lowell Tech students. There are 22 kids in the program and they're doing all the construction," Trainor said.

Two teams of students, under the direction of Habitat construction manager Scott Carpenter, alternate weeks in the classroom and on the job site and the partner families are working with them on the construction. The other duplex is under construction with assistance from corporate teams, which each donate a day for the cause.

"We are so fortunate; we have so many volunteers for community team building days.

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March, April, May and June are all full with volunteers coming out to work on these homes," Trainor said.

The crews broke ground in October for the Rock Street project.

"We raised our first wall in February with help from one of our families," Trainor said.

Next month, leading up to Mother's Day, Trainor is getting a whole new set of volunteers, as a part of Women Build, a national event sponsored by Lowe's that serves to recruit, educate and nurture women who build and advocate for simple, decent affordable housing. About 7,500 women participated nationally in the event last year, including volunteers at the local Habitat's most recent project at Carter Way in Bedford, which housed eight families and incorporated an old farmhouse that was equipped with green energy updates. That project was finished in November and the neighborhood held its first Easter egg hunt this yea, Trainor said.

"I have close to 90 women who will come out and build with us this year. It's amazing what women can accomplish," Trainor said.

The two families who were selected to receive the Rock Street homes had to attend an informational meeting and also had to have an income of between 25 and 50 percent of the area median to qualify. In addition to taking financial literacy classes, the families each have to put in up to 400 hours of sweat equity; the requirement is 225 hours for single parent families, Trainor said.

When the new homes are finished, the Medeiros and Poll families will each take on a zero percent interest mortgage.

A resident of Westford, Trainor, 51 and married with three children in the local public schools, worked in international sales before taking her current position.

The office is also keeping busy running its Billerica used furnishings shop, ReStore, and serving clients of the new Critical Repair Program, which covers repairs to everything from kitchens to roofs and porches for the elderly and military veterans so they can stay in their homes.

"We've impacted five families and have about 25 on a waiting list for that program. It's a great way to reach out to all our communities," Trainor said.

Recently, a Dracut parcel was donated for another project, but one of the biggest needs is for other land donations so the office can keep serving families in need, Trainor said.

"We've had some very generous people in this area, but we still need property," she said.

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